Healthcare Experts Debate about the Current Key Issues in Healthcare

10.05.2017

The Forbes Healthcare Summit, a premier gathering bringing together hundreds of healthcare executives from around the world, was held from November 30 – December 1 at New York’s Lincoln Center. Industry leaders met to tackle the toughest issues: improving patient outcomes, reducing waste, and investing and paying for breakthroughs.

Lively panel debate with industry expertsForbes senior editor Matt Herper interviewed a panel of presidents and CEOs of leading pharmaceutical and biotech companies. In their reflections on the past two days, they debated key issues related to value, reputation, and pricing in healthcare. In certain markets, such as Latin America and Asia, the healthcare sector has one of the highest reputations among any industry. However, when the drug industry is removed from the individual and there are intermediaries deciding pricing, problems occur. Out-of-pocket costs have seen a dramatic shift from insurers to patients, causing a more negative perception of the drug industry. Americans, for example, pay more for drugs than other healthcare costs (15% of drug costs, 9% of physician costs, and only 3% of hospital costs). On the subject of high-deductible insurance plans, a suggestion was made to allow modifications, such as an exception for chronic diseases, to control costs.

Value and pricing remain complex issuesOn the broader scale, there was agreement that the healthcare industry needs to do a better job communicating the value provided, but the complexity of the industry makes this difficult. An argument was made to engage payors in authentic conversations prior to regulatory approval of drugs, especially with breakthrough medications that could result in high cost burdens and pressure from patients wanting access. The pricing of drugs is a complex matter influenced by a number of in-market factors such as GDP and prevalence of disease. Price increase is a sensitive topic and it was emphasized that the healthcare industry should be careful not to simply drive profits through price rises not directly coupled with innovation. Essentially, the industry needs to reconcile this challenge with patients who want affordable drugs and are not necessarily interested in funding innovation for the future.

Siemens Healthineers shape the debate This year, a number of Siemens Healthineers executives attended the summit for the first time to meet and brainstorm with the leaders of prominent healthcare providers, such as Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Northwell Health, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and Hospital for Special Surgery, among others. Leaders of Siemens Healthineers Services participated in two plenary presentations at the summit: first, on communicating and defining value in healthcare; second, on the potential of data analytics to improve population health.

Driving data-based improvementsAt the close of the first plenary session, Matthias Platsch, Head of Services, Siemens Healthineers, shared an overview of how the healthcare industry is undergoing a transformation through digitalization in a segment titled “Creating New Solutions for our Collective Future”. Matthias Platsch outlined the goals of value-based care, the role of collaboration, and how Siemens Healthineers aims to help partners manage the huge volume of data now available: “As we enter the era of digital health, we recognize the exponential growth in data. As the innovative partner, we need to provide solutions that help healthcare providers manage the sheer amount of data in order to secure better clinical and operational outcomes, while reducing costs significantly.” He also discussed these topics in an interview with Emmy-award winning journalist Ben Baer on ForbesLive.

Joined up digital thinking for better healthcareIn a second plenary session, the focus was on “A New Way of Thinking about Healthcare”. This debate dealt with population health, how patient care could be optimized through the exponential growth of data and information, as well as the potential of improved data analytics and other tools to help the system cope. During the panel discussion August Calhoun, Senior Vice President of Services, Siemens Healthineers, highlighted how information is far more useful when it is combined. High-value data is key to unlocking insights and achieving necessary advancements in healthcare. August Calhoun also announced Siemens Healthineers’ partnership with Northwell Health and explained how critical such partnerships are in driving value-based care. The event was covered by Forbes.com.

In this age of innovation and the digitalization of healthcare, the timing could not be better for Siemens Healthineers to join in a global conversation to find industry solutions and drive change. Siemens Healthineers will participate next year and continue to lead the conversation on transitioning to value-based care.

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The statements by Siemens’ customers described herein are based on results that were achieved in the customer's unique setting. Since there is no "typical" hospital and many variables exist (e.g., hospital size, case mix, level of IT adoption) there can be no guarantee that other customers will achieve the same results. Moreover the picture shown in this article does not depict Forbes event attendees.